Previously, many type of coffee brewers have been used in endeavoring to provide an effective means for producing hot water quickly and efficiently for coffee brewing. In most cases, this hot water supply has been limited to brewers utilizing a hot water reservoir that is elevated in temperature to near boiling, providing an appropriate quantity of water to be available for brewing purposes.
Ground coffee is normally contained in a removable filter unit disposed below the outlet of the hot water reservoir. When users wish to brew a pot of coffee, they energize the controls so that cold water from another source enters the reservoir and causes hot water to exit through the ground coffee and the filter into a storage pot located on a warming plate below the filter. The water in the reservoir is then reheated, ready for brewing a subsequent pot of coffee.
It will be noted that many coffee making machines, known in the art, are also equipped with a second outlet faucet, where hot water may be withdrawn from the reservoir without passing through the coffee filter for making tea, hot chocolate, other beverage, or freeze dried soups, etc.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,063,836, issued to Patel, is such a device, however, improved to include level sensing, controlling water inlet f low to the reservoir. A solid state circuit board controls function to particularly accurate temperatures so as to preclude boiling and maintain a constant fill level compensating for evaporation.
In many instances prior art, as well as this forementioned coffee brewer, utilize a glass coffee pot for receiving the brewed coffee and, therefore, require a warming plate. Others, however, employ a vacuum sealed, capped server that maintains the leaving liquid temperatures for long periods of time, eliminating the necessity of a warming plate.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,404,794, issued to Patel et al, is an improvement of the above described prior art and includes a tank heater for maintaining hot water in a partitioned reservoir and, also, a boiler to feed boiling water into the ground coffee contained in the removable filter. This prior art further incorporates a spigot, or external faucet, in communication with the reservoir to allow individual cups, or containers, of hot water to be withdrawn from the same source for various food reconstitution, or so-called instant beverages.
Many other coffee brewers have been developed to incorporate features of level, temperature and dispensing control. The field is actually replete with both home and commercial coffee brewers of various designs and approaches, however, the need still exists for improvements in automation, safety, and visual indication of the process.
The improvement to the coffee brewer and hot water dispenser is related to patent application Ser. No. 08/810,708 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,830,236 filed Mar. 3, 1997 by the inventor. All of the elements of this invention are used in the improvement with some additions to expand the functional operation of the device.